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Caption: THIS IS A STORY OF ALICE, OF HOW SHE HAD LIVED AND HOW SHE DIED.
AFTER HER DEATH, SHE BEGAN TO TELL WHAT SHE HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO TELL.
YOU’RE NOW READING THOSE.
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Caption: I can’t precisely remember when exactly i started to remember things. Some said when I was about 10 or close, but I’m sure there are few important and significant things I remember and during all the time they are nestled in my deepest memory.
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Caption: I remember times I had with my parents, how they had loved me so well that they took me to good and beautiful places and so many pictures were taken. They gave me token of every places we had visited. I remember spending times with my little brother that was only five years different from me, and through all times we had fought and played so much. I remember, how they all looked at me the way I was the greatest gift God had ever bestowed upon them.
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Caption: Through all the poverty, my life was beyond perfect.
And i would've never thought that it all could be severed by my death.
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Caption: Before I start to tell you what had happened to Alice, to me, I want to ask you a question.
Have you ever, just once in your life, asked yourself :
what reason does God own to create you?
Or,
what could you do to the rest of other billions mankind?
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Caption: I thought of that many times, every times, and I wondered there must be some way I could show off my presence among billions people in the world by giving some good deed.
I remember how I couldn’t wait for those times to come.
But I never thought that it took my death to make the world realized my presence.
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Caption: It all started in high school. Who would have ever thought that high school could be so worse? It was then before I started my very first day as a freshman.
Everyone wanted to be popular. Everyone wanted to date cool senior guys that played basketball and drove car to school. Everyone wanted to have people to look at them pleadingly and endearingly whenever they passed through corridors and halls.
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Caption: Including me, but I next realized I barely even had a friend. I was a shy-type girl, who would feel terribly nauseous if a teacher pointed at me and ordered me to speak in front of the rest of class. Although I really wanted to know my classmates names, I couldn’t find a way to do so. What made it worse, they didn’t even ask for my name. At first I wondered why, but when days turned to weeks, I knew why.
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Caption: It was all because they perceived that i was different from them.
That i did not belong to the society to which they held in high esteem.
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Caption: I came school in tatters because my parents could only afford to buy me export-waste clothes from local markets. People, that I couldn’t barely say my friends, made fun of it by mocking me. They said I was a tatterdemalion, ragamuffin, a vagabond. I remember walking through corridors, clutched my one and only frayed bag tightly so rascal boys wouldn’t snatch it and threw it to the rubbish bin, lowered my head so people who lined up in corridors laughing at me wouldn’t see the tears that running down from my eyes.
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Caption: I envied girls who dressed so fancy, got out from car driven by their well-suited drivers, glittered by an extravagant jewelry and stuffs, face and hair that were nurtured so well.
Once I was caught looking at them, then they cynically said,
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Caption: ”What a creature like you are looking? How could a creature like you live among us?” Said Jocelyn, the prettiest girl who seemed to be the leader of group that consisted of two other girls hanging around her like a dangling parasites.
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Caption: It was like a slap on my face.
I asked so many times, how could people only make friends with other people who dress the same as them? Who think what they think? Who like to do what they like? To judge people based on what they have instead what they possess inside?
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Caption: My mom realized what happened to me, and after work tiringly she asked me what happened. I would love to burst out crying in her arms, but then I looked at her face that vividly represented such a tired and heavy minds. I wouldn’t want to burden herself much more, so instead I smiled and said everything was just fine.
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Caption: I thought it would be better to be invisible. To eat lunch in toilet so I wouldn’t get so hurt when people didn’t spare their tables for me, to sit in the corner of class, to get back home in the second after the school bell rang.
But it wasn’t that easy, especially after powerful people found a match on you as their prey. To fulfill their desire of bullying, and using you as their stomping targets.
And it all had started.
For the rest of high school years.
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Caption: I don’t know why Jocelyn and The Girls (that was what people called them) resented me so much, I had no idea what I had done so they hated me. I couldn’t see why I deserved all the bullies.
Caption: I remember sitting in the corner of toilet chamber, looking unwillingly to the single bun and dried lettuces and tomatoes in my meal box – the only thing that my parents could afford me that they did not even have a breakfast and were going to skip lunch so me and my brother would have something to eat. I heard somebody broke in to the toilet doors and giggled, and the next thing happened was somebody threw a bucket full of dirt water and smelly rubbish to me. Jocelyn and The Girls laughed so hard, especially when they bumped my toilet door and started taking pictures of me covered in a very wet and smelly trashes. After they were satisfied, they left. I stared blankly to the uniform I was wearing, which my mom washed and cleaned so carefully that she said she was so proud of me going to this fancy school she had never been to before, which then was covered by dirt and the color turned black and grey. I looked at the meal on my lap that were completely dissolved, the only meal my parents had to give me. I cried.
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Caption: The next day I saw my pictures hanging in school corridors, and people laughed at me like I was some kind of a ridiculous clown.
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Caption: Starting that day, Jocelyn and The Girls threatened me to do all their homework and assignments, and if I wasn’t willing to do so, they would do something worse than what they had done to me. I carried their bags, I served them during lunch time, I wiped their faces, I did all their assignments, with no intentions of having them reported to teachers. Sometimes, Jocelyn and The Girls took the money I had, no matter how hard I told them that I didn’t have much. Without all that money that they didn’t even spare, I left out starving and perforce walked my way home.
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Caption: But i wasn't the only victim.
Or,
was i?
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Caption: Things were as difficult as what Emma had. Emma, the red-haired whose face full of freckles, was suffering from bullying worse than me. I had seen what Jocelyn and The Girls did to her, and I knew I was lucky for not being treated the way she was. Moreover, the boys mocked Emma for her appearance so hard that sometimes Emma cornered her self in the toilet crying, and none of people cared about them. Just like me, she had no friend at all.
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Caption: Or to Patrick, who was often sucked in into trash can, and being left there hours. Jason, the geeky nerd with thick glasses who was beaten up every single day in the back of school. Jane, whose hair was perforce cut out rudely by Jocelyn and The Girls, and her stuff were all thrown away because they were all so fancy that Jocelyn and her gang disliked it so much.
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Caption: I watched them all, but I couldn’t do anything more. Just like other high school students who watched what had happened to us, but did nothing for changes. They were watchers, the bulliers were players, and we were the victims.
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Caption: One day, Jane couldn’t stand the bully anymore. She reported all that had happened to her to principal office, and when she got out from the room, she was beaten hard by Jocelyn and the Girls. No further actions were taken by our teachers and school staffs related to the bullying, and ever since what had happened to Jane, we all decided to have this on our own. We only needed to endure it for less than a year before graduating high school, and we couldn’t wait for that.
But unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a time until then.
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Caption: On my 16th birthday, my parents gave me a locket they got from local market sales. A locket that was so beautiful, the most wonderful and prestigious thing I had ever had in my entire life. We celebrated my birthday with a single cupcake made originally by mom, and we took a picture happily that my dad directly printed out and hung in the walls. That morning, I had no idea that it would be my last family photo taken.
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Caption: That day, I didn’t know what had come to me that eventually I had guts to face Jocelyn and the Girls. I realized that fear must be faced, not to be avoided and we should not bow to it. Everyone deserved to be served right, and no one should stomp on each other. And I was going to free my self from them.
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Caption: Just like usual, I met them at the back of school, before I carried their bags. When Jocelyn asked for my money, I was so amazed with my self when I heard my self saying, ”No.” As surprised as me, Jocelyn and The Girls looked at me in disbelief.
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Caption: ”I beg your pardon? What did you say?” shout Jocelyn.
”No, I don’t want to give you my money.” I stated.
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Caption: ”What…how did..” Jocelyn looked at me menacingly, but then she finally could control herself. ”Fine. If you don’t want to give us your money, then be it.” She glanced to her other two girls, and what happened next was them dragging me inside.
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Caption: I had no idea where they were going to take me, I screamed as hard as I could at the top of my lungs, but nobody cared. I tried to lose their tight grips on my arms, but my energy was drained by my shouting. Jocelyn opened a locker and suddenly threw me inside. The Girls pushed me to the back of locker and then shut the door closed. I heard the sound of click! as they locked me in.
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Caption: ”I told you, you have no idea how evil I could turn into. Enjoy yourself there, trash.” Then she left and went on giggling with The Girls.
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Caption: I cried and tried to shout in the narrowed space inside of the locker. I knocked on the door, hoping somebody would realize my presence and helped out from there. Minutes turned to hours, and as I ran out of air, I ran out of ideas of how to get out from here too.
Caption: Weekly I reached my note book and tore a paper out of it. I wrote,
"Help Me I’m Inside"
with both of hands shaking.
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Caption: I slipped it out through the thin holes of locker’s door and peeked out. The sign was there, on the floor, waiting somebody to read it and take some action. I then realized it was class time, so nobody would wander off the corridors. I guessed I had to wait for one more hour. And when the bell rang, I got my hopes up. I peeked again, and I saw people coming out from classes. Nobody saw the sign, nobody even realized that there was a paper on the floor nor read the writings on it. People stepped on it, and at last it was shattered.
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Caption: Time passed on, and the school hours finally ended, and I was still there inside. Running out of air, thirsty of water, starving, and my energy was drained out slowly but sure. I dented my self and hug my knees, crying in tears. I grabbed another note book and tore a paper, and with the last energy I had, I started to write the only short sentence I could : "I love you, Mom, Dad, and Alex." – Alice. And I closed my eyes, leaving the writings on my lap, and started to give away what would happen next.
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Caption: That was so not how I wanted my 16th birthday to be. But, if God forbids, then shall be it. I died on my 16th birthday, died from dehydration for 10 hours kept locked in inside the locker. It was painless death, more like a long-lasting sleep – what makes it different was, I never woke up again.
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Caption: Weirdly, I could see what happened next. I felt hovering in the air, watching Principal Harry and other teachers, and few polices, tried to unlock the locker. Other high school students lined up in corridors, staring at my body in shock. I suddenly saw my parents ran towards my body, and the next thing was I cried seeing what happened in front of me. How my mom hugged my body, and cried like a crazy person. My dad was there, trying to conceal his tears though I still could see them, and hugged my mom and calming her down.
That was the day that I died.
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Caption: I always wanted to be well-known by the entire school, but not this way. A big picture of me smiling was hung in front of school hall, and people sat there in grief. There was a writing : Rest In Peace, Alice.
Principal Harry took some speech, and I saw the students stunned in silence. I watched it all clearly and obviously.
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Caption: My parents received my short letter. And the polices found the shattered piece of paper written Help Me I’m Inside that I wrote not long before I died. The police investigated student one by one, of how I happened to be locked in inside the locker for 10 hours straight but no one seemed to notice. Then they caught Jocelyn and The Girls, who seemed to be so shocked by my death that they never had expected to happen.
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Caption: And it was the start of other exposure. Emma, Jane, Patrick, and Jason, looked at my death from the bright side. They stood for me, and they told everyone (including police, my parents, teachers, and principal Harry) of what had happened to me and also them. Principal Harry and the teachers hurried to catch the rascal who had bullied them, and handed them to police for further actions and precautions.
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Caption: The news of my death became so virtual that every media spoke about it. There were my stories in television, there were my faces in magazines and newspaper. They even published my story on ‘inspiring’ section. Ever since my death, there were strict rules as precautions to overcome bullying cases. Because of my death, people like me would no more to be stomped on, mocked of, bullied, beaten, and they could enjoy high school times wonderfully. People looked at my death in a brighter side, to let people notice and concern about weak people who were threatened to be bullied.
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Caption: I saved a lot of people.
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Caption: There, I was then well-remembered. It wasn’t my presence that changed the world, but it was my death.
Caption: Because they started to pay attention to what they had neglected for long time since the day Alice died.
The day I died.
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Caption: In heaven, i started to write a letter to you. A letter to enlighten you about what had happened to me.
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Caption: If you're one of those kids who hate somebody for their appearance, what they have, or what they are known about, and choose to bully them to release your desire of being mischievous....
Ask your self.
Have you ever put yourself in their shoes?
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Caption: Speaking of people in my story who did all the bullies, they knew so little about their victims or what they had been through. I believe, if only they had known, they wouldn't have done the bullying.
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Caption: They didn't know how Emma had spent her time throwing up all foods that she had eaten. How long she had been hospitalized for having malnutrition and almost died.
Or, how much money she had spent on beauty products to enhance her appearance, which all turned out to make her face more irritated.
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Caption: They had no idea what had Jason been through when they beat him. His father had beaten him too at home, his mother ran away with another guy, her little sister was proclaimed a slut in her junior high school, he lived in a narrow RV, he had never had money at all and worked so hard as a trash-cleaner every single day to afford living.
That he had never felt any love, care, or compassion.
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Caption: They would've never thought that Jane's parents were divorced and she was lonely. She was from a family who was so much impoverish. Her father was a truck-cargo driver, her mother was an low-paid nurse, and they had 4 kids to take care of. But Jane wanted friends, so she had asked and forced her parents to buy her fancy stuff, in order to blend in. She had no idea how her parents loved her, that they willingly did what she asked them to - although they could not afford it.
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Caption: They would've never guessed that the reason why Patrick had been so silent and quiet was because he was so depressed. He had almost got to the psychiatric hospital for being so stressed and depressed, by the fact that his parents and his sister were killed in robbery and he lived because he had been out playing video game at the game station. The regret of neglecting his family for video game had made him mute and become a loner.
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Caption: As for me, they had never known how my parents treated me full of love, care, and compassion.
All of it ended just because i did not blend in the society.
I had to die to complete the gap i had never wanted to get involved in.
Caption: But they had learned from the day Alice died.
The day i died